Digital advertising may be causing almost 2% of global carbon emissions
magiclasso.coThis doesn't pass a cursory sniff test: Web traffic is 17% of Internet traffic, so even if we accept 25% of that is ads (I'm dubious) that would be 4.5% of traffic. That would add up to 0.3% of emissions.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/271735/internet-traffic-...
As per your link, many of those other categories listed such as Video and Social media also contain as much as, if not more, advertisement load than perhaps even pure 'web traffic'.
The article was using the % of advertising resources in web pages – which came to 24% – as a proxy for the overall advertising resources across all internet traffic (which is difficult to accurately ascertain).
So, yes, this is a rough approximation... and the actual % of advertising resources on all internet traffic may be more or less.
However it is stating all digital advertising may be the cause 2% of global carbon emissions, not just due to the advertising on web pages.
That's a bad way to estimate that, unless one's goal is to come up with an absurdly high number which doesn't pass the sniff test. In which case they succeeded. It doesn't.
I can't find a monetary breakdown of online vs. other, but by total advertising costs, I see 1.5%. So if online is not dominant I agree that they are high but close, maybe within the order of magnitude.
I was recently thinking about going back to the idea of Butter (https://butter.sonnet.io) and expanding it a little bit. Can we build a proof-of-concept of a universal ad blocker™ running on your phone? It uses AI (it's very fancy):
- model 1: use screen capture to detect ads
- model 2: once an ad is detected, hide it in a context specific way (e.g. if it's the native YT app, find and click the skip button, if it's a podcast, seek past the sponsored segment etc...)
both model 1 and model 2 gradually learn, perhaps share knowledge between users, in a manner similar to blocklists.
Perhaps in 3-5 years our devices (mobile G/CPUs and batteries) will get powerful enough to support this. Imagine the possibilities!
It's a ridiculous idea. I also think it's possible we'll see something like this in the future, because it feels like a simpler solution than dealing with the systemic issues related to advertising.
Why stop there?
Ideally you could use a device like the Apple Vision Pro with a machine learning model to blank out all advertising you see both in the real and virtual world. Would be interesting for it to recognise billboards, for example, and simply show a blank space instead. It could also work with AirPods to simultaneously silence any audio advertising.
Unfortunately this is not possible at the moment due to the restrictions that are placed on the pass-through video feed by Apple in visionOS. If these OS restrictions were removed it could be technically feasible.
> Ideally you could use a device like the Apple Vision Pro with a machine learning model to blank out all advertising you see both in the real and virtual world. Would be interesting for it to recognise billboards, for example, and simply show a blank space instead. It could also work with AirPods to simultaneously silence any audio advertising.
I need to go to bed, but... I used to run an AR startup (pre-pokemon go/AR craze) and I played with an idea like this. What works better: polarised sunglasses and shitty LCD screen ads*!
* you might wanna tilt your head by 90deg from time to time
I wonder how this compares to the manufacture of the things being advertised.
hehe, came here to say something similar, i.e. it would be hard to quantify the amount of resources wasted on convincing people to buy things they don't need.
Define "things you don't need" ? That's a very subjective qualification. Even things which may only bring joy to the end consumer but very little objective value otherwise still have the effect of raising the spirits of said consumer a little (or a lot).
Like are Magic the gathering cards "something you need"? No. Do they bring endless joy to people who enjoy playing MTG, do they help build supportive communities, etc? Probably. Is that net good for the world? Probably.
This reminds me of the rant of a friend of mine who works on movies and TV shows. Someone was telling him the entertainment industry was useless and doesn't bring value to the world. He replied "cool so if we took away all your streaming platforms, all your music and all your books you'd be totally cool with that?" . Obviously the answer was no.
Oh no, I don't mean the things that bring joy, on the contrary -- we need more toys and "useless" things around ourselves!
I write about this extensively on https://sonnet.io/posts/reactive-hole/ or https://untested.sonnet.io and I totally agree with you.
I make toys and useless things in my spare time (e.g. https://untested.sonnet.io/Sit.%2C+(together)+devlog+002+–+S... or https://rafsters.itch.io/all-hands) and I used to run an MtG club :)
Example of making people buying things they don't need would include sth like: a person who cannot afford to buy an expensive phone every year, getting one because of peer pressure generated by millions of dollars spent on advertising. I'm not talking about someone who would buy the same phone for their own pleasure, I'm talking about someone who would become socially excluded or mocked by his friends at school.
I'm talking about a generated need and compulsion over pleasure.
> Define "things you don't need" ?
Things you wouldn't seek out unless you were first shown an ad.
MTG is a great example of the opposite. You seek out something fun to do with your friends. You happen to see an ad for MTG as fulfilling that need. Fantastic! Advertising works as it should.
But if I buy a print-on-demand mug as a gag for my sister's birthday, do I really need to spend the rest of my life looking at ads for novelty mugs? The gag is done. Nobody needs more mugs.
Precisely: I meant generated need and compulsion over pleasure.
Wait until you see how much physical advertising contributes. :D
Especially if you consider branding, which I don't know why it wouldn't be in this, it is tough to compete with shenanigans like how merchandising for the losing side of stuff like the super bowl are dealt with.